Читать книгу Scottish Reminiscences онлайн

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William Black, the novelist, used to tell of an English clergyman who, having breakfasted and paid his bill at Tobermory, was anxious for the arrival of the steamboat that was to take him north. He made his way to the pier, and walked up and down there for a time, but could see no sign of the vessel. At last, accosting a Highlander, who, leaning against a wall, was smoking a cutty-pipe, he asked him when the Skye steamer would call. Out came the pipe, followed by the laconic answer, ‘That’s her smoke,’ and the speaker pointed in the direction of the Sound of Mull. The traveller for a time could observe nothing to indicate the expected vessel, but at last noticed a streak of dark smoke rising against the Morven Hills on the far side of the island that guards the front of the little bay of Tobermory. When at last the steamer itself rounded the point and came fully into sight, it seemed to the clergyman a much smaller vessel than he had supposed it would be, and he remarked to the Highlander, ‘That the Skye steamer! that boat will surely never get to Skye.’ The pipe was whisked out again to make way for the indignant reply, ‘She’ll be in Skye this afternoon, if nothin’ happens to Skye.’ The order of nature might conceivably go wrong, but Hutcheson’s arrangements could be absolutely depended upon.